Arts & Culture

Music City has it all!  Nashville may be best known for its music scene, but it also offers dance and theatre, as well as visual arts, and more.  Events are held in Middle Tennessee throughout the year in celebration of art, music, dance, food, and literature, ranging from monthly neighborhood art crawls to four-day festivals drawing nearly 100,000. While the Ryman Auditorium is perhaps the most legendary live music venue in Nashville, there are venues on every scale, ranging from the small Nashville honky-tonks to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center to large arenas and amphitheaters.  Live music can be found around the Nashville area 365 days of the year and 24 hours a day, and much of it is free. The private, non-profit Tennessee Performing Arts Center, which presents many Broadway shows, occupies an entire city block in downtown Nashville and houses the Tennessee State Museum.  Also presenting their work on TPAC’s stages are the Nashville Ballet, Nashville Opera, and Nashville Repertory Theatre.Nashville’s First Saturday Art Crawl in the downtown art district draws people to the city’s growing art scene; Frist Art Museum rotates its exhibitions every six to eight weeks and also offers educational programs and community outreach activities; and Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Museum of Art offers both indoor and outdoor exhibitions year-round.  The free, three-day Southern Festival of Books is held annually in Nashville and welcomes 200+ authors and 30,000 visitors each year to celebrate the written word.